Surveillance shows theft of monitor from library

By Ed Runyan

The suspect was identified by video camera and library card.

WARREN — The theft of a computer monitor from the mystery department of the Warren branch of the Warren Trumbull County Public Library Monday didn’t turn out to be much of a mystery.

It took Warren police just a couple of days to use a videotape from the library and some computerized information from the library’s Tech Room to identify a suspect. Though the suspect has not been arrested, police have issued a warrant for his arrest.

Sgt. Dan Hudak of the Warren Police Department said police issued the warrant Wednesday afternoon for the 41-year-old Warren man after identifying him through the surveillance video that was operating in the mystery department Saturday when the monitor came up missing.

It showed him with a woman, putting the monitor under his coat and walking out with it. A library security guard said he saw the man in the video leave the library that day. He also picked him out of a police photo array, Hudak said.

Police have not identified the woman in the video, he added.

The suspect also used his library card that day, and library officials were able to provide police with his identity through a list of individuals who used their card that day, Hudak said.

Robert Briel, the library’s director, said Hudak is apparently referring to the library’s Tech Room, where library patrons can use a computer to access the Internet.

That is an automated system that allows patrons with a library card to use a computer for an allotted period of time. It identifies the cardholder and the time he or she used the card, Briel said.

Warren Municipal Court officials said the warrant accuses the man of petty theft, a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail.

Library officials estimated the monitor’s valued to be $280.

Briel said the monitor was used with a computer that allows patrons to call up a computerized library catalog system.

It was a lightweight flat-screen model that was easily placed under the thief’s coat and taken out the door, Briel said.

After the monitor was taken, the library replaced it with one of the older models that would be harder and less desirable to steal, Briel said.

The library has 32 video cameras to monitor activities in the building, Briel said, adding that signs warn patrons that their movements are being taped.